Are you a ‘Vitamin’ or a ‘Painkiller’?

If you are a startup founder making the rounds with investors then you may have heard this question a few times before, “is your product a ‘vitamin’ or a ‘painkiller?’

In plain English, is your product addressing a pain point or is it something that’s ‘nice to have’ but not ‘need to have?’

Investors love painkillers for more reasons than one, I suspect, but especially because these products rate of return is usually in high yield territory and venture capitalists are all about scalable concepts that can return at least 10x on investment.

Do you know who else is all about return on investment?

Yep, you guessed it, your employer.

Despite our organization’s proudest corporate social responsibility achievements, when it’s all said and done, the only true green initiative is profits.

Similar to VCs, our employer is also making a bet on our future and is expecting payback somewhere in the bottom-line. And though we are often not peppered with questions about how our contributions impact the company’s overall financial performance, it is important to know whether the skills we bring to the table sustain or improve the health of the organization.

You stand a better chance clicking your ruby red slippers three times than getting any respectable investor to take a meeting with a founder without them coming through his network. So if you’ve got your foot in the door of the job you truly want then you’ve won half that battle. The other half is showing up and knocking your boss’ socks off.

Making a good impression at work goes a long way, literally. In an HBR article, “Are You a High Potential,” Linda Hill and Douglas Ready found among survey respondents that 90% said exemplary individuals who significantly outperform their peers are promoted faster than other employees.

It’s easy to get our employer excited about us as we often are about them. Simply, help the organization identify and solve their biggest problems and we are rubbing the spot.

If we stripped away the glitzy corporate overlay, underneath we would find that an organization is nothing without its people. It’s because of this “humanness” that our employers are predisposed to some of the same neurological issues we experience as human beings.

We both have problems dealing with pain. Yet it is much easier for us to pop an aspirin to allay the pangs than it is for an organization to find an effective quick fix. Admittedly, organizations do have their own medicine chest of pain prescriptions – they are called consultants. But that approach is usually very expensive and often lead to dependency. In which case, the organization will wind up in need of an intervention to rid that intervention.

The best talent strategy begins with hiring the right people – people who are motivated by the work they do, who share the vision, who embrace the culture, and who have a genuine interest in the success of the company.

However, there will always be people who are more motivated and talented than others. That’s the fact of organizational life. In every organization, there are people who solve big problems, a majority who maintain homeostasis, and the rest who are really just there for the merry-go-round. Where we land on that spectrum determines our survivability when organizational disaster strikes.

Painkiller-employees solve big problems and are usually indispensable. They make the organization more efficient and profitable. Vitamin-employees make up the majority of the workforce because for most organizations sustenance is more important than continuous improvement.

The main difference between vitamin and painkiller-employees can be summed up to how quickly they deliver value and results. If you ever experience a pounding migraine headache, which do you usually reach for, the Centrum or the aspirin?

Yet balance is important. Too much or too little of either can potentially pose organizational health concerns.

An organization’s pain points are mostly external. They are environmental factors such as the political, economic, social landscape in which the company competes. The frequent plate shifting requires the organization to hire people who can anticipate and get ahead of these movements to retain or accelerate market position.

Similarly, internal factors such as organizational culture, structure, and management create their own list of pain points. Those issues are a lot more in the organization’s control than anything external, which means a regular regimen of vitamin support can potentially and eventually rejuvenate sore spots but might not be potent enough to handle the more onerous and urgent problems the organization faces outside of its walls.

Be a vitamin if you can’t be a painkiller. The idea is no matter what role we play, be it strategic or tactical, we owe it to ourselves to show up and kick ass. We can’t all be in positions to solve big problems but small landmines are scattered throughout the organization. And those small administrative problems also cost the organization both time and money.

We are given the same boundless opportunity to make a difference and to be the master of whatever domain we choose. Whether you believe that or not, it’s true.

So, what is this good for?

Perhaps you are at a point in your career where you are beginning to take stock of your skills. Assessing whether those skills are helping the organization solve its biggest problems may provide a different perspective and can potentially change your course. Acquiring new skills requires the same judicious decision-making process as changing career or switching jobs. Keeping in mind how your skills will impact the organization’s ability to achieve its objectives should be front and center when deliberating whether to be or not to be a ‘painkiller’ or a ‘vitamin.’